Development of a Sensitive Method for the Determination of 4-(Methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol in Human Urine Using Solid-phase Extraction Combined with Ultrasound-assisted Dispersive Liquid-liquid Microextraction and LC-MS/MS Detection

An efficient and sensitive analytical method based on molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) and reverse-phase ultrasound-assisted dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (USA-DLLME) coupled with LC-MS/MS detection was developed and validated for the analysis of urinary 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol (NNAL), a tobacco-specific nitrosamine metabolite. The extraction performances of NNAL on three different solid-phase extraction (SPE) sorbents including the hydrophilic-lipophilic balanced sorbent HLB, the mixed mode cationic MCX sorbent and the molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) sorbent were evaluated. Experimental results showed that the analyte was well retained with the highest extraction recovery and the optimum purification effect on MIP. Under the optimized conditions of MIP and USA-DLLME, an enrichment factor of 23 was obtained. Good linearity relationship was obtained in the range of 5-1200 pg/mL with a correlation coefficient of 0.9953. The limit of detection (LOD) was 0.35 pg/mL. The recoveries at three spiked levels ranged between 88.5% and 93.7%. Intra- and inter-day relative standard deviations varied from 3.6% to 7.4% and from 5.4% to 9.7%, respectively. The developed method combing the advantages of MISPE and DLLME significantly improves the purification and enrichment of the analyte and can be used as an effective approach for the determination of ultra-trace NNAL in complex biological matrices.